Pick Your Poison
by Count of Eight
Summary: Killua wasn't entirely sure how Gon had persuaded him to agree to this, but wide eyes and absurdly charming smiles had definitely been involved.


**A/n: Sorry that this is a few days late, I wrote most of it while drunk at a New Year's party because inspiration is often inopportune like that, and couldn't decide if I hated it or not when I woke up. I spent some time fiddling with it and now I can fiddle no more. Please enjoy and happy New Year, everyone!**

Pick Your Poison

Killua wasn't entirely sure how Gon had persuaded him to agree to this, but wide innocent eyes and absurdly charming smiles had definitely been involved.

New Year's had never been much of an event in his family. The completion of the earth in its annual trip around the sun meant very little to assassins outside of the chance of an an easy hit due to the target's intoxication. He knew it was meant to be a cause for celebration amongst the commonwealth, but he had never really had a chance to experience it for himself firsthand. At least, not until now.

So far he was not impressed.

Whale Island. It was Gon's world, had been all he'd ever known until the age of twelve, and it seemed to Killua that he knew the name and personal information of every last inhabitant. They were all here, and Gon moved through them easily, all smiles and small-talk, asking about the fishing, the families, the shops and the storms. Everone knew him, and everyone loved him. Unsurprising, of course. The boy could charm a stone. But Killua found himself looking around the square full of smiling strangers and felt very much the outsider. They weren't impolite, just impersonal; he wasn't one of them, and there was no point in pretending that he was.

That, and he got the feeling that everyone was silently sizing him up. Judging his worthiness to be spending so much time with **their** Gon.

It was putting him in a very sour mood.

To say that he was uncomfortable would be a gross understatement. He had downed drink after drink and to hell with the fact that he was still a year away from sixteen. Unfortunately, his body seemed to classify alcohol as a poison and stubbornly refused to allow him to get even the slightest bit drunk, much to his growing sense of frustration. His instinct was to stick to Gon like a small, silver burr, but that felt impolite somehow. So instead he had positioned himself close to to makeshift bar, keeping one eye on his friend and using the other to glower intimidatingly at anyone who so much as **glanced** at the pile of empty glasses he was accumulating.

Mito had hung around him initially, perhaps sensing his discomfort, but after a while she too had been sucked into conversation, leaving him alone with his thoughts. He signaled to the hapless man pouring the drinks for another and ignored the pointed stare telling him that really, he'd had enough. He most certainly had not. Not by a long shot. He drained the glass proffered without even pausing to notice what it was, the acrid taste of the alcohol sliding almost unnoticed down his throat.

Over and over the question repeated itself in his mind; _Why am I even here?_ He knew the answer, of course. He was here because Gon had wanted him to be, but that didn't make him feel any less out of place. To be honest, with his age and complexion (pale where everyone else was tan, young where all the others were at least middle-aged) he stuck out like a sore thumb. Hell, he **felt** like a sore thumb. He signaled for another. It was gone almost as soon as the glass touched the counter.

Still nothing. Damn.

He glared at the clock that had been set on the bar in an accusatory fashion that would have made a lesser object rethink its purpose in life. Still another half an hour to go before midnight. He rubbed his face. Maybe he should just demand an entire bottle; he might at least stand a chance then.

He looked over to where Gon was chatting excitedly to a grizzled old fisherman, feeling a bit forgotten but unable to fault his friend for it either. When an entire island demands your attention what chance did one person stand? But really, he didn't know what Gon had been thinking. He would have been so much happier curled up with some snacks and a comic back at Mito's place than packed into this tiny square full of people he didn't know or care about in the slightest. But Gon had wanted him to come, and when Gon wanted things Killua found himself inexplicably acquiescing; agreeing to whatever was asked, often in spite of himself. There was probably something to that, but Killua did not believe that now, or arguably ever, was the proper time for introspection on that subject, and signaled for another drink instead.

Which the bartender nervously but firmly refused to pour.

tHe quickly weighed his options, most of which involved violence, theft, or just generally kicking up some sort of ruckus, and settled for glaring balefully at the unlucky fellow who quailed visibly. A moment later the man shoved a bottle across the the counter with a bit more force than necessary, muttering something about irresponsible strangers and stubbornly refused to make eye contact with him after, which suited Killua just fine.

He screwed off the cap and took a sip. The stuff tasted foul, but he could tell that it was potent so he took another. And another. Mentally he cursed his immunity, conveniently forgetting that it had saved his life more times than he could count. Now that he thought about it, he had never seen his father touch a drink in his life. Now he knew why.

_Wonderful_.

He downed the rest of the bottle, ignoring the horrified looks that the people around him were giving him and slammed it down on the counter. Most of them had been giving him a wide berth, (something to do with the pile of empty glasses and the sour twist of his mouth) but now they huddled back around the edges of the bar, seemingly unsure whether he was about to explode into a rage or simply fall down dead. Neither of which anyone wanted to be within fallout range of.

He managed to keep himself from rolling his eyes- but only just. He supposed that he should just be glad that nobody was trying to talk to him. There was simply no accounting for what he might say in his present mood, but it would probably send those of lesser constitutions running for their homes and he got the feeling that Gon wouldn't be very happy about that.

Of course, it was exactly then that a hand came to rest on his elbow, politely demanding his attention. He spun on his stool, ready to lay into the unfortunate who had **anything** to say about the amount he had imbibed that evening-and stopped up short when met with large brown eyes and a familiar toothy grin that hadn't gotten any less endearing as his friend had grown. Hm. It seemed that he had lost track of Gon's movements somewhere in the midst of the moody haze of his frustration.

"Killua!" the other teen exclaimed happily, seemingly oblivious to the atmosphere surrounding the bar. He caught sight of the empty glassware and his eyes grew wide. "Did you drink all of those?" he asked wonderingly. "Lucky! Mito won't let me yet." Killua shrugged noncommittally, which was the closest he could come to saying that yes, he had drank them and no, he was not drunk despite his most sincere desires to contrary- without breaking something. Gon's eyes twinkled mischieviously. "Hey! Say the alphabet backwards!"

He did. Rapidly.

Everyone around him goggled. Gon slapped him a high-five.

Killua enjoyed a perverse rush of satisfaction at that and had to fight to keep the corners of his mouth from twitching upwards in what he was sure would have been a very unpleasant smile. There wasn't much time to revel in the feeling though, because Gon grabbed his arm saying that he had something to show him and began hauling him unceremoniously through the throng of bodies occupying the square. Killua risked a glance backward in time to see the people around the bar all looking studiously elsewhere before the crowd closed behind him, blocking both them and his mountain of glasses from view. He couldn't say he was dissappointed.

Then the hand on his arm slipped down to catch at his own fingers, and he forgot about alcohol and irritating simpletons for a moment. He stared at the hand tangled in his own, half guiding, half dragging as they threaded their way through the shifting masses. Then he looked up at the back of his best friend's head, and back at their hands again.

_Urk?_ said his brain intelligently and he immediately found himself wishing for another stiff drink because that uncomfortable introspective feeling was threatening inside of him again and he was very firmly Not Prepared to deal with All That.

He attempted to wriggle free, but Gon seemingly had no intention of letting go, and any attempt to question his friend proved equally fruitless. His initial query of _Where the heck are we going?_ had only caused Gon to color slightly and mumble something about tradition in a voice that Killua had to strain to hear over the general hubbub around them. All further questions had been met with a vaguely embarrassed sort of silence. Or maybe that was just him. It was hard to tell.

Gon kept compulsively checking a watch that Killua would swear he'd never seen on his friend before that evening, and when he snuck a look at it he saw with some relief that there was a mere five minutes remaining until midnight. With any luck, everyone would disperse once that apparently important moment had passed.

Ha, he thought. Not likely.

But at least he was with Gon now, and he hoped that it would last.

They came to a halt around the back of the city hall building at the edge of the square. He shot a questioning look at his friend, but Gon only let go of his hand and clambered up an untrustworthy looking service ladder, leaving Killua little choice but to follow. He did wait until Gon was all the way up, though. The thing looked as though it might disintegrate in a particularly strong gust of wind.

When he swung himself onto the roof he all he could see of Gon was a mop of spiky hair sticking up on the opposite side of the roof's crest. He jumped lightly over it to find his friend sitting on the gentle slope of the tiles, gazing out over the colorful sea of the festivities beneath them. Killua looked out at the crowds that had so irritated him moments ago and realized that it was actually kinda... pretty. It was mayhem, of course, but the view was undeniably good. He flashed the other boy a smile, settling down next to him.

"Do you come up here every year?"

Gon looked up from studying his watch to grin widely at him. Two minutes, Killua had time to notice. "Yeah!" his friend said happily. "I found it when I was seven. I snuck away from Mito in the crowd to explore and ended up here. She was pretty mad," he confessed guiltily. "But it was so great I had to come back the next year, and the next, and well..." he shrugged. "But I've never had a friend to bring up here before!"

He returned his friend's smile easily. "This is a cool tradition, Gon. Thanks."

To his surprise, Gon colored again. "Uh, actually... that's not...I mean, that is..." he stumbled helplessly, and then all the lights in the square went out.

"It's starting!" Gon exclaimed, sounding a bit relieved. "Look!"

Killua looked.

On the building opposite them across the square large glowing numbers were being projected, and they were counting down.

_57...56...54..._

"The last minute," Gon whispered almost reverently, and Killua shook his head in fond amusment. His friend's gaze was rapt on the numbers, watching them tick down towards nothingness. Towards an ending. Towards a beginning. It was exactly the kind of moment that Gon would find significance in and Killua couldn't help but be caught up a little in the other boy's quiet joy.

_39...38...37..._

A new year. He looked down at the upturned faces of the crowd; hushed, expectant. All of them waiting for the moment when those numbers would reach zero. It really meant so much to them.

_25...24...23..._

The dawning of a new day, he thought. In many ways no different than the dawning of any other. A few hours from now the sun would rise and take it's usual path across the sky, the same as it had done all the days that came before, and would after. The only tangible difference would be the amount of people staying in bed and complaining of headaches. It was the change of a number, a tool for historians to keep track of events. In the day to day lives of individuals, it had little impact at all.

But...

"Ten," chanted the crowd, and Gon with them. "Nine, eight..."

Listening to them (_seven_) and looking at the glow in his best friend's eyes (_six_), he couldn't help but feel that there was something here, something that he was missing. (_five, four_) Something he thought he might want to understand.

Gon elbowed him and he joined his voice with that of the crowd.

"Three, two, **one**..."

The clock hit zero.

A cheer went up, fireworks exploded, and then Gon's body collided with his, effectively tackling him and nearly knocking them both off the roof. "Wha-" was all he had time to voice before the unfamiliar feeling of Gon's lips pressing against his own overwhelmed his senses.

His mind did several backflips and then stopped dead, the world fading to a dull roar in the back of his awareness.

_Oh_.

Eventually, the small engine that ran his brain kicked back to life enough to allow him to kiss Gon back, which he did with a fervor that surprised even himself; a host of thoughts and feelings clicking comfortably into place inside of him. It should have been weird, he knew. It should have been a big deal... but it wasn't. It was just Gon, and nothing had ever felt more natural.

When Gon pulled away Killua knew that the stupid grin spreading over his friend's face was mirrored on his own.

"So that was what you meant, huh." He felt more at ease than he'd been all night. "Can't say I was expecting it."

Gon rubbed at the back of his head, a mixture of pleased embarrassment playing across his face. "Yeah...at midnight, that is, I always wanted to have someone to... yeah."

"Shut up, stupid," Killua grumbles around a smile, pulling his best friend down on top of him again.

A new year, huh?

Things were looking up. Oh yes they were.

**A/n: Thanks for reading! Take a moment and tell me how you feel, my dears!**


End file.
